Flavor Country
by iheartjackie
Summary: Have you ever wondered why Razer started smoking?


Flavor Country

Summary: Have you ever wondered why Razer is a chain smoker? Rated T for language, German, graphic cigar smoking, and non-graphic man love.

Disclaimer: I own everything you don't know and nothing you do know. Also, I haven't played Jak X in FOREVER, and I have no idea if I have Razer's character spot on. ("Oh, can I borrow Jak X, please, just for a bit?" ~My nephew three years ago.) I also hold no account for how accurate any of the German is in this fic is. I'm sure my great-grandparents who traveled from Germany/Russia to California in the early 1900s are very proud of me now.

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><p>He took a large drag from his cigarette, letting the smoky cloud swirl in his mouth, flicking and stirring it with his tongue before finally inhaling it and exhaling twin streams from his nose. The prickling round flavor of tobacco filled his mouth, making him sigh; <em>mein gott<em>, how he loved the flavor. Unique, warm, full and of course _smoky_. Delicious, so decadence, sometimes he could lose himself completely in a fag.

He smiled to himself, chuckling slightly. Lose himself. In a _fag_. Double entendre. Where was his notepad? He had to write that down for the track. Or bar. Maybe bathroom…?

He wrapped his lips against the butt, pulling in more smoke. The paper consumed by flame crackled, soft like whispers, as another burst of ash made its way down his throat and into his lungs. He suddenly got horny at the thought of his lungs being violated from the nicotine substance. Sinking deeper into his overly stuffed armchair, he adjusted his collar and rubbed his chest through his coat.

Suddenly his mind went blank, and he let his cigarette become slack upon his lips. His hands settled into a neat, linked pile on his chest as he sunk further into the fluff, not giving a single damn about posture at the moment.

Memories. Do you really have control over them? When they come and go? If you did, then how could he be thinking of _him_?

Older, balding, slightly pudgy, hair a strange color of grey-yellow with faded blue tips, eyes so blue, it was as if a cloudless sky was pore into his irises.

Beal.

The name was both befitting and unsuitable for the man.

He remembered the day they met quite well, but not the meeting so well itself. It was cold and grey, that day, as the town usually was. There wasn't as much fog as usual.

Razer was sixteen, a few weeks from being seventeen, not that he cared. He'd live _forever_.

A nice, grey wool overcoat with a bright crimson scarf and newsboy hat, a pair of black slacks and just-shined dress shoes, his outfit for the day. He remembered it because it was the first time he incorporated such a brazen display of red into his wardrobe (and never went back). Anyway, he was out and about, walking to a rather fashionable café for lunch when he bumped into a stranger. The man muttered, "'Scuse me;" Razer, supercilious, huffed and walked away.

Beal said that was the day he caught his eye.

It was the evening of his birthday when they met again, in a club that was exclusively for men.

Razer was rather tipsy, enjoying spending his money on fancy-colored drinks: green, blue, red, pink, even all the colors of an early sunset. Marvelous.

Beal had just slipped beside him with a tentative, "_Hallo_."

He wasn't quite drunk enough to find the man _über_ attractive, but he could talk, and talk they did. By the time they'd stop gabbing about useless things like life and important things like fashion, it was almost five o'clock AM. The sun was just an opening eye in the sky.

"I had a very nice time talking to you," Beal cooed in a rough, botched voice, "I'd like to do it again sometime, _ja_?"

His vanity taken effect, Razer responded with a lusty, flirty smile, his lips puckering slightly. Much like a slinky feline, scratch him in the right spot and he'd purr all day, and this man was doing a rather good job of it.

Taking it as an invitation, the man swooped into a kiss. It surprised Razer at first, but he quickly enjoyed it. No tongue, all lips, but, _ach_, weren't they _soft_. They broke apart at the same time. He could feel the ghost of stubble against his chin and lips still. He liked it. A lot.

After a nap, a wicked headache and a bottle of aspirin, he found himself back in the company of Beal. He didn't know why, or even how—the man just appeared on his doorstep—but he didn't mind the attention one bit. By sundown, they ended up in a lounge, sipping on brandy and tasting cigars.

Beal took a drag off a sample. Razer watched his mouth intensely, his tongue darting around just behind his slightly yellowed teeth in a misty, swirling cloud before the fog disappeared and jettisoned from his rather large nose. He presented the smoke, butt first, to Razer.

"_Hier_," he said, smoke still pouring from between his teeth. "You saw what I did. Why don't you try it?"

Apprehensive at first, Razer took the cigar from Beal's hand, handling it like a glass collectable. He'd never smoked a cigar before, and only tried a cigarette once, but it couldn't be too different, right? He placed it between his lips and took a small drag.

Of all the times he'd thought he would cough up a lung…

Beal laughed, a cracked, broken sound, yet beautiful in its own right. "You must suck gently, slowly, let it come into you, and _enjoy_ it."

Razer tried again, succeeding in letting the smoke penetrate his lungs with no hacking afterwards. The taste was strong, thick like cotton on his tongue. Overbearing.

"_Viel zu stechend_?" Beal asked, noticing Razer green face. "Why don't we try something a little more _mild_?"

A man with a predicable butler's tuxedo and mustache came by and presented more cigars. They looked to Razer the same as the others, but Beal nodded, an impatience "_perfekt_" hissing between his teeth. After the cap was cut, the head met his lips and the tip turned bright orange before cooling to a salt and pepper grey. "Mmmmmmm…" He handed it to Razer, smoke twisting and curling from his nose and mouth.

The flavor was much more manageable. In fact, it tasted a lot like cherries…and mango…pineapple, pear—it was familiar yet wholly different. He couldn't pinpoint it.

"It's a tobacco soaked in an exotic fruit extract. Wumpa." Beal began to rub his chin, a gentle, seductive smile making him very handsome. "Only one island in the world grows the tree."

"_Wundervoll_," Razer replied. It was sweet and clung to his tongue like melted cotton candy.

Beal's smile widened. "We'll take a box."

It went on like that for weeks: wine tasting, cheese tasting, art galleries, concerts, operas—it was the fifth week in that Razer realized this guy had money and meant business.

In their box above the stage that held the actors to an old romantic play, they kissed, Razer enjoying the beard burn and the exotic taste of hardy tobacco and sweet, white wine. He moaned into Beal's mouth, and he felt the man smile against his lips.

Beal broke away with a sloppy smacking sound, which made Razer whine, but the man's soon lips found a rather lovely spot on the youth's neck that made him shiver. Teeth and tongue trailed up the column and to his ear, nibbling on the lob before a quick lick to the cartridge. Razer gasped; he'd never again be as hard as he was then.

Wispy and thick, Beal clumsily whispered into his ear, the stench of alcohol sashaying into Razer's nostrils like a spoiled cat. "Let's go back to your place."

Razer couldn't deny or comply, heady from the moment; he just went as he was pulled to the stairs, out the door, and onto a cruiser.

They reached his apartment and the kissing began again, much more intense than ever before. Heat, flame, fire, blaze, inferno, _pure passion_. He felt his clothes disappear from his body, soon the sheets being the only matter he could feel other than complete skin-to-skin contact.

When they were finished with what Beal would sentimentally say as "making love", they shared a cigarette. It was actually a cigarillo, but who could care for semantics then?

Razer was so very sore, but happy. He looked to Beal, studying every wrinkle, crow's feet, freckle, sagging part of his face. His bulbous nose, his thick, almost mono brow, his stubby ears covered in nicks, his mole which perched just above the right side of his lip. He was the most ugly attractive man he'd ever met. He could almost believe he was in love.

Beal's lips gently kissed the corner of Razer's mouth, a bulbous arm snaking its way around the young man's waist. "Beautiful." Another kiss. "Handsome." Another. "Gorgeous." Oh, he knew how to win him over.

Utter putty in his hands.

He opened his arms and Razer enthusiastically dove into them, burying his fingers into the curly, grey hairs of his chest as equally hairy arms enveloped him. Never could Razer remember a day he felt so calm, so safe, so _right_.

He woke up the next morning cold, in an empty, soiled bed. Too sore to move properly, he had to scan his small home from an achy leaning position.

No Beal anywhere. Not in the living room/bedroom/kitchen or the bathroom. No clothes on the floor or shoes by the door.

Gone.

Razer felt as though a pit opened in his stomach, and his chest suddenly became constricting. He touched the spot were Beal was last night. Cold.

Sadness increasing, he let his eyes drift to the window, then to his nightstand. He blinked. A box of cigars and a note sat by his tacky (yet fashionable) lamp. The writing was quick, messy and written on a crumpled napkin; a ghost of smoke, the odor which stuck to skin like cheap cologne, wafted from the soiled paper. It said:

_Thanks for the fun time!_

_~Beal_

Yes…_fun_.

Razer slowly drifted back to the present, the soft velvet of the armchair cradling him as he strangled back a single, gut-wrenching sob.

No, he didn't have his heart broken, but he was let down. He was abandoned, deserted, discarded.

Betrayed.

He had never trust anyone ever really, but the _only_ man he ever placed his whole self into, let him cradle his metaphorical heart, _crushed_ him, made him ooze between fat, hairy knuckles like a crushed tormage.

_Never_ again.

He slowly rose from his resting place, almost zombie-like in reflex. His steps were slow, deliberate, almost as if a small part of him was trying to compel him to sit and forget, but he made it to the cabineted bookcase. Small, ornamented doors opened easily as it was one of the few things Razor had no locks on; a yellow-gloved hand reached in, pressing against the bottom, making it popped up with a _clunk_. The box within the hidden compartment was handled with care. It was made from wood, very unusual, but the objects inside would mildew or burst if left in a metal container.

The hinges slowly opened, revealing five year old, sweet-smelling cigars. He plucked one from the box before hiding it all away again. Finding a matchbook, he struck a wooden match against the table and lit the cigar slowly, watching the cherry grow red before waving out the flame. Just like Beal taught him.

He pulled the ash into his lung; the sweet smoke, the saccharine flavor, he could identify both as "wumpa" and "Beal" entered deep within him. He let the smoke settle on his tongue before exhaling it through his nose and sucking it back in. The sweetness soon smoothed away into something a bit bitter, which reminded him of limes and palm wood. Not completely unpleasant, but different. He could never find _the_ perfect wumpa cigar.

He let his mind wander, and his thoughts gravitated to some new faces in his life. One particularly kept rearing his not-so-ugly head again and again. He was a blond with eyes that looked like the sky was poured into his irises…

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><p>DID I MAKE SMOKING GAY ENOUGH YET? Hurr, hurr, hurr. :B<p>

I bet Naughty Dog fans enjoyed a wumpa fruit reference, am I right? Of course I am. I am Jackie after all.

Fun Facts: "Beal" is an actual French name, a variant of "Beau" which means "handsome". "Beal" also happens to be a Scottish word meaning "to fester, to seethe with anger". The ending ambiguous enough for it to be more than one blond hair, blue eye, male character; Jak, of course, is the obvious one, but it could also be G.T. Blitz/Mizo, and Jinx—yeah, I know, he wasn't in Jak X and has green eyes, but I think his rough and tumble, "Brooklyn" attitude and smoking enthusiasm would foil nicely with Razer's hoity-toity, "German" fashion and smoking enthusiasm. They could give each other lung cancer as they screw! Yay! And you maybe asking yourself what a "tormage" is: it's a fruit I made up that's a hybrid between an orange and tomato. Why? They are messy when squished.


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